Indonesian net isn’t drifting

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

As Indonesia prepared a successful
bid to host the 1999 meeting of the
Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species, Bill Rossiter of
Cetacean Society International forwarded
reports from scuba diver Steve Morris and
marine mammologist Peter Rudolph,
indicating “military and governmental
authorities” had allowed Taiwanese fishers
to suspend two huge nylon nets from
pylons in the Lembeh Strait, just offshore
from the Tangkoko Nature Reserve.
Paraphrasing Morris, Rossiter
said the nets went up in March 1996, and
in their first year caught 1,424 manta rays,
18 whale sharks, 312 other sharks, four
minke whales, 326 dolphins, 577 pilot
whales, 789 marlin, 84 sea turtles, and
nine dugong.

Bombed birds can’t be found

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor
for ecological services Brooks Harper on May 16
issued a new Biological Opinion for Gunnery and
Aerial Bombardment Practice at Farallon de
Medinilla, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands. As Friends of Animals special investigator
Carroll Cox described on page 17 of the March edition
of ANIMAL PEOPLE, Farallon de Medinilla is a
tiny island north of Guam, uninhabited by humans but
heavily used by protected sea birds and sea turtles
––between U.S. Navy bombing and strafing.
The new Biological Opinion, issued preliminary
to more bombing and strafing, notes that the most
endangered bird on the island, the Micronesian
megapode [ovenbird] is “likely to remain underneath
brushy cover, and therefore, deaths or injury from
either direct strikes or indirectly from shrapnel would
be difficult to detect from aerial surveys,” as if finding
anything left of a bird the size of a robin who’s been
hit by a bomb might be likely anyway.

Paul and the pirate

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

BREMERHAVEN––A pirate whaler is at large in the central
Atlantic, Captain Paul Watson is out of jail, and the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society has a ship and crew at Bremerhaven, Germany, almost
ready to sail. “We don’t know if we’ll be able to find it,” Watson told ANIMAL
PEOPLE from Washington D.C., after addressing the Animal Rights
‘97 conference and attending a banquet in honor of Animal Rights
International founder Henry Spira, “but we’re going that way anyway to chase
some driftnetters, and we might as well have a look.”
The Portuguese Navy was reportedly already looking with a warship––but
the last time there were pirate whalers in the region, the Portuguese
Navy protected them. The most notorious was the S i e r r a, operating from
Lisbon with impunity. On July 16, 1979, Watson, Peter Woof, and Jerry
Doran overtook the Sierra with the original Sea Shepherd vessel, then rammed
her twice as she ran for the protection of a Portuguese destroyer. The destroyer
apprehended the Sea Shepherd after a high seas chase, but Watson, Woof,
and Doran all eventually escaped, while inspired Sea Shepherd sympathizers
sank the damaged Sierra and three other whalers. The rest left the Atlantic.

NO SURPRISES––ESA FIGHT RESUMES

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––With CITES over, the
endangered species spotlight shifts back to the ongoing battle
over reauthorizing the Endangered Species Act.
An indicative early round had a promising outcome
on May 7, when the House of Representatives killed a measure
to give flood control projects precedence over protecting endangered
species. Since most endangered species occupy wetlands
or water, this might have effectively dismantled the ESA. The
final vote count showed 172 Democrats, 54 Republicans, and
one independent among the 227 opposing votes, of 423 cast.
House wise-users next tried to amend the Disaster
Relief Bill with a rider to expand right-of-way claims in roadless
areas. That too was defeated.
The Bill Clinton/Albert Gore administration might
have helped tip the balance on April 22, announcing a $125-
million-a-year scheme to both protect fish and wildlife and promote
the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest. The timber
industry praised the deal, but 37 environmental groups
demanded changes. “There is a heavy reliance on logging to
fix problems that logging caused,” objected Rick Taylor of the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

Scientists say Canada falsified data

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

NEWFOUNDLAND– – Memorial
University biologist Edward Miller, host of a
February 1997 workshop on how harp seals
affect the Atlantic Canada cod fisheries,
charged on June 24 that one of the four participants
from the Canadian Department of
Fisheries and Oceans had privately disclosed
data indicating that as many as 500,000 seals
were killed in the 1996 offshore hunt, nearly
double the official count of 262,402.
Twenty-nine scientists from seven nations
took part in the workshop.
“DFO personnel found several
sealing vessels carrying the same number of
male seal genitals as pelts,” Charles Enman
of the Ottawa Citizen reported. “But the
number of pelts should have been roughly
double the number of male genitals, since
male and female seals are impossible to distinguish
before they are shot. This suggested
that sealers were collecting genitals and pelts
from the males, but discarding entire female
carcasses, pelts and all,” as there is little
market for pelts and reporting kills of females
would just deplete the sealing quota faster.

A LAME DUCK SHALL LEAD THEM

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

MONTGOMERY, Texas––Not the
nail of Confucian proverb who sticks up, so is
hammered down, Yong Gwinn wasn’t thinking
about religious or cultural context when
she called minister Jean LeFevre recently
about an injured duck. She was just thinking
about the duck. A cake decorator at the
Woodlands Executive Conference Center and
Resort in Montgomery, Texas, Gwinn knew
LeFebvre and her husband Lawrence rehabilitate
birds at the nearby St. John’s Center, so
she picked up the telephone and became
involved.
As the duck later waddled free,
greeted by his surprised and delighted mate,
the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Rules
Committee moved to de-escalate a year-long
flap over the sale of live animals as food by
dropping two of the four members of the
Commission for Animal Control and Welfare
who unsuccessfully pushed to ban such sales.
Although the ban cleared the Commission last
November, the Supervisors never voted on it.

Secrets of the Forbidden Island

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

NIIHAU, Hawaii––Conflict of
interest questions raised by the recent designation
of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback
Whale National Marine Sanctuary may go
well beyond the competing mandates of different
government agencies. The well-connected
heirs of Eliza Sinclair and their designated
agents could potentially make millions
of dollars through the lease or sale of the
island of Niihau to the U.S. Navy for inclusion
in the Pacific Missile Range––after
keeping it out of both the whale sanctuary
and, earlier, the Northwestern Hawaiian
Islands National Wildlife Refuge, which
includes all the islands north of Niihau.

CITES BEATING LEAVES ANIMAL PROTECTION GROUPS TO REGROUP

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

HARARE––The 10-year global ivory
trafficking ban fell on June 19, as Zimbabwe,
Botswana, and Namibia won approval from the
1997 Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species triennial in Harare,
Zimbabwe, to sell 59 tons of elephant ivory to
Japan in early 1999, after 18 months of refinement
of safeguards supposed to prevent the sale
from providing cover to ivory poachers.
The sale, involving about a third of
the ivory stockpiled by the three southern
African nations, is the first legal crack in the
ban, imposed by CITES in 1989. The ban
braked the collapse of the African elephant population
from 1.3 million circa 1980 to just
600,000 a decade later.

Suit vs. BLM horse program keeps an ace for wild jacks

July 1, 1997 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1997:

RENO––Suing the Bureau of Land
Management on June 19 for alleged maladministration
of the 1971 Wild and Free-Roaming
Horse and Burro Act, the Fund for Animals
and Animal Protection Institute dropped at the
last minute a much discussed request for an
injunction to halt BLM wild horse and burro
roundups pending program reform.
As filed, Fund attorney Howard
Crystal told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “The pending
motion before Judge Howard McKibben
strictly concerns the matter on which Judge
McKibben ruled [in favor of the Fund and
A P I ] ten years ago––the adoption program.
Plaintiffs are requesting that the Court modify
its longstanding permanent injunction against
the BLM to require the agency to affirmatively
inquire into the intentions of adopters, rather
than continuing to implement a policy which
one Justice Department attorney refers to as
‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ In addition,” Crystal
said, “plaintiffs are seeking other changes in
the adoption program to help ensure that adopted
animals end up in the hands of people who
intend to care for them, rather than sell them.”

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